Bedding manufacturers often install corner guards on the lower, exterior side corners of their fabric-covered mattress foundations such as box springs, etc. These corner guards protect the fabric at the corners of the mattress foundation from being snagged or worn against the bed frame or against other objects when the mattress foundation is being moved. Preferably, corner guards should be resistant to impacts and sized to fit between the mattress foundation and the bed frame.
Prior art corner guards have been molded from a plastic such as polyethylene or polypropylene which can easily be bent around the corner of the mattress foundation. These corner guards usually include one or more tabs which can be positioned underneath the mattress foundation and attached to the bottom of the mattress foundation by tacks, nails, staples, etc. Examples of these corner guards are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,884,385 and 5,628,080 to Quintile, U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,455 to Patterson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,906 to Pacelli, U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,955 to Adams, and U.S. Pat. No. 1,088,959 to Benton, the disclosures of which are herein incorporated by reference. Although conventional plastic corner guards are functional and inexpensive to manufacture, they detract from the appearance of the mattress foundation and mattress. Therefore, many manufacturers would prefer to ornament the corner guard with trademarks, brand-names, logos, decorations, and etc., to improve the appearance of the corner guards.
While there have been attempts to apply a paint or metal coating to conventional corner guards, the plastic surface of conventional corner guards are difficult to paint or coat because most paints and coatings have poor adhesion to plastic. As a result, when the corner guards are bent around the corner of the mattress foundation during installation, the paint or coating tends to crack and/or peel off. Alternatively, a metal plating may be applied to a pre-bent corner guard made from a stiff plastic such as acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS). The metal plating is less likely to peel because the shape of the pre-bent corner guard is not changed during installation. However, the relative stiffness of the pre-bent corner guard leaves it susceptible to breakage under impact. Furthermore, the metal plating allows only limited ornamentation since it is difficult to provide metal platings in a variety of colors.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an inexpensive, impact-resistant corner guard which may be ornamented as desired and which withstands bending without damage to the ornamentation.